Huawei's New Smart Glasses Edge Out Ray-Ban Meta in Battery Life

Announced April 20, 2026, Huawei has officially unveiled its inaugural camera-equipped smart glasses, placing them in direct competition with the Ray-Ban Meta AI Glasses. The new Huawei offering includes a 12-megapixel camera for point-of-view video and stills, translation capabilities, and an integrated voice assistant, a feature set that echoes its prominent rival.

However, Huawei distinguishes itself in one crucial metric: battery life. According to Android Authority, the new Huawei glasses achieve an impressive nine hours of continuous music playback. This significantly surpasses the five hours reported for continuous music playback on the second-generation Ray-Ban Meta glasses, which generally advertise up to eight hours for intermittent use.

Weight also merits consideration, though Huawei's initial claims require clarification. Huawei states its smart glasses weigh 35g, almost 20g lighter than the 50-53g range of Ray-Ban Meta models. As Android Authority points out, this 35g figure notably excludes the lenses. With lenses factored in, the lightest Huawei model reaches 47g - still lighter than Meta's, but the difference is less dramatic. The use of titanium in the rim and hinge contributes to this weight reduction, likely enhancing durability.

Pricing for Huawei's new smart glasses is competitive, with an MSRP of 2,499 yuan (approximately $367 USD). This positions them almost identically to the starting price of $379 for the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 AI glasses.

Our take: Huawei's entry into this segment with such a strong battery claim is notable. While the initial weight specification without lenses feels like an unfortunate marketing choice, the real-world performance of both battery and overall usability will determine its true impact. For users prioritizing continuous audio playback, Huawei presents a compelling alternative, assuming the promised endurance holds up under typical use.

## How it compares to Huawei's previous eyewear

To understand where these new camera glasses fit in Huawei's portfolio, it helps to examine the company's hardware progression. Before adding an onboard camera, Huawei targeted everyday connected audio with the Huawei Eyewear 2. Announced globally in Barcelona in September 2023, followed by a launch in China on September 25, 2023, the Huawei Eyewear 2 arrived as audio and AI smart glasses priced at $330. That model weighed only 36g, did not require a cable, and featured the Celia voice assistant powered by HarmonyOS AI. However, the Eyewear 2 completely omitted both a display and a camera, relying entirely on voice interactions and open-ear audio without on-device AI.

Huawei also explored wearable visuals with the Huawei Vision Glass, which officially went on sale in China on December 26, 2022, following a November unveiling. Selling for $380, the Vision Glass was positioned as display glasses offering a 120-inch virtual screen. They featured Micro-OLED panels delivering a resolution of 1920x1080 per eye across a 30-degree field of view. Weighing 112g and requiring no cable according to specifications, the Vision Glass lacked cameras, on-device AI, and independent audio assistant features. By contrast, the April 2026 glasses integrate a 12-megapixel camera directly into regular-style frames, blending everyday wearability with capturing capabilities.

## Context and subsequent updates

The debut of this hardware marks a major tactical step for Huawei. As we reported on April 21, 2026, in 'Huawei Debuts AI Glasses with Camera and Integrated Translation,' this launch introduced the brand's first camera-equipped AI eyewear powered by HarmonyOS. In another report published on April 21, 2026, titled 'Huawei Enters AI Glasses Arena, Challenges Meta and Domestic Rivals,' we noted that Huawei's entry sharpens competition across a fast-growing market, directly targeting Meta while also contending with domestic rivals like Alibaba and Rokid.

Since this article was published on April 22, 2026, we reported on April 23, 2026 ('Huawei Enters the AI Glasses Race With HarmonyOS-Powered Specs') that the tech giant's first camera-equipped smart glasses challenge Meta's dominance with real-time translation and a proprietary AI chip. For shoppers tracking the smart eyewear space, the differences between these generations highlight shifting engineering priorities. While the Eyewear 2 emphasized lightweight comfort at 36g for $330, the new camera glasses add visual capture, point-of-view stills, and translation at 2,499 yuan (about $367 USD). Even with lenses bringing the total weight to 47g, the device remains lighter than the 50-53g Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 frames, while offering nine hours of continuous music playback compared to Meta's five hours.

Source: Gizmochina ↗